A multilayer ceramic capacitor is a chip-type condenser mounted on the printed circuit boards of a variety of electronic products such as image display devices, including liquid crystal displays (LCDs), plasma display panels (PDPs), and the like, computers, smartphones, mobile phones, and the like, serving to charge or discharge electricity.
Such a multilayer ceramic capacitor may be used as a component of various electronic devices as it is relatively small in size, and is able to secure high capacitance and convenient to install. As electronic devices such as computers and mobile devices are becoming increasingly miniaturized and increased in power, there has been increased demand for a multilayer ceramic capacitor having a compact size and high capacitance.
Further, as there has been increasing interest in vehicle components in related industries, multilayer ceramic capacitors are increasingly required to have high reliability and high strength characteristics in order to be used in vehicles or infotainment systems.
In the above context, to achieve high capacitance characteristics and reliable temperature coefficient of capacitance (TCC) characteristics, sintering may be performed under a moderately-or-more reducing atmosphere for hydrogen, rather than under mildly reducing sintering conditions commonly used in conventional manufacturing processes. However, as sintering is performed under a moderately-or-more reducing atmosphere for hydrogen, a large quantity of oxygen vacancies may be formed inside dielectric layers, thus causing an undesirable decrease in reliability.